When the Lights Come on Again (9 page)

For although their Red Cross class was led by a local lady, Mrs Galbraith, she was helped out from time to time by local doctors, visiting lecturers and other members of the organization, including Amelia Buchanan.

‘He liked you,’ Helen pointed out. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come running out into the rain that night to offer you a lift. Would he now?’

‘How do you know he wasn’t coming after you?’

‘A woman knows these things,’ said Helen, putting on what both girls referred to as her mysterious voice. It was copied from a fortune-teller they had visited a couple of weekends previously. The woman, sporting a Russian name and corresponding accent - neither of them could decide whether or not either characteristic was genuine - had predicted that they were both shortly going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger with whom they would fall deeply in love.

‘A tall, dark, handsome stranger,’ Liz had scoffed once they were safely back out on the street ‘You’d think she could have been a bit more original.’

‘At least we’re getting one each, Liz,’ Helen had pointed out ‘We won’t have to fight over just one of them!’

‘Besides,’ she went on now in her normal tones, still talking about Adam Buchanan, ‘he was perfectly nice and polite to me, but he looked at you in a different way.’ She raised her fair eyebrows. ‘Quite a different way.’

‘Might I point out, Miss Gallagher, that the fortune-teller spoke of a tall,
dark
, handsome man?’

Helen batted her eyelashes at her. ‘And you said that was a load of baloney.’

Liz snorted and determinedly changed the subject.

It hadn’t taken Liz long to find out the real reason why Helen wouldn’t come to the dancing. Having worn out her last evening dress some time ago, she had nothing suitable to wear. Working behind the make-up and perfume counter in Woolworth’s, it was a hard enough job ensuring she had some decent outfits for work. She rang the changes with two skirts and four pretty, but businesslike blouses.

When her supervisor suggested that one of the skirts was becoming a bit threadbare, it hadn’t been easy to find the money for the material to make another, so a new dance dress had gone way down the list. And of course, as the only girl in a family of boys, Helen had no sister to borrow from.

Liz had a solution to that particular problem. It was hanging at the back of her wardrobe. Bought at Copland & Lye’s January sale six months previously, the dress had been a real bargain and she’d thought it exquisite. It had an orange satin underslip and draped brown georgette overdress. A boat neckline was set off by a graceful floaty collar in the same material. Little cap sleeves completed it and the hem danced attractively on the knee. As she and Helen had agreed, skirts were getting shorter again.

Once Liz got the dress home, trying it on in the privacy of her bedroom, she saw that it did absolutely nothing for her. Her own colouring was too dark. The beautiful rich brown of the dress needed a blonde.

Soon after she met Helen, she realized that the dress would look great on her. Her golden hair would set it off to perfection. The two girls, both fairly tall, were also much of a muchness in size. Helen was perhaps a little less full in the bust, but the dress could be easily adjusted for that.

So far, however, Helen had refused even to try the dress on. Looking unusually haughty, she had informed Liz that she most certainly was not prepared to accept it as a gift. Until she had the money to buy it from her, the dress would have to stay where it was.

Passing the town hall on her way home, Liz glanced up at the clock. Twenty past ten. Helen was so stubborn, but she’d look fantastic in the georgette dress. There must be some way she could make her take it-

Twenty past ten? Hell’s bells, she must have been dawdling down the road. Her father would be home in five minutes’ time!

Seven

Breaking into a run, Liz rounded the corner- and stopped dead. Her father was a hundred yards in front of her. Oh, Mammy, Daddy! What was she going to do?

Then it came to her - the muddy lane which ran behind the houses on Queen Victoria Row. She could dash along there and get in the back door before her father reached the front one. She’d need the luck of the Irish to do it, especially as she would have to give him another half-minute. If she ran down behind him now, he might hear her.

She counted out the thirty seconds, her eyes on the back of his head. Don’t turn round, don’t turn round. Then she ran like the wind, sticking close to the hedges of the gardens which bordered the road. Her heart was thumping. She hadn’t moved this fast since she’d been at school.

With a sob of exertion and relief she wheeled into the lane - and caught her skirt on a nail sticking out of a fence. Damn, damn, damn. Pulling herself free, Liz pushed open the garden gate, sped up the path, flung open the back door and threw herself into the kitchen.

The occupants of it greeted her sudden arrival with upturned faces and looks of astonishment: her mother, Eddie and Mrs Crawford from next door. They were even more amazed when Liz flung her jacket off and ran out to the lobby to put it on the coat stand. Were those her father’s steps she could hear coming up the front path?

Rushing back into the kitchen, Liz switched on the big wireless set which sat on its own solid wooden shelf to the left of the kitchen door. There was a dance music programme on. The band was playing the Lambeth Walk.

Eddie was sitting at the table. Liz seized his hand and pulled him to his feet.

‘Dance with me,’ she said breathlessly. She threw a glance at her mother. ‘Don’t tell him I’ve been at my Red Cross class, Ma. Please!’

Mrs Crawford looked puzzled. ‘Why should her father object to her doing that? I don’t understand.’

Liz and a bemused Eddie started dancing. The music was very loud. In her haste, she’d turned the dial too far. Then it suddenly stopped.

‘What’s the matter with the wireless?’ asked Eddie, whirling round to check. ‘Oh!’

His father was standing in the doorway, his hand on the knob of the substantial machine.

‘What do you lot think you’re playing at? I could hear that cheap music from halfway down the street!’

He wasn’t to know that everyone present knew that wasn’t true. From the front door maybe... but not from halfway down the street. The wireless hadn’t been on then.

‘Mrs Crawford. I didn’t see you there.’ His voice had changed, become much less cold. Liz hated him for being able to do it. He would give his family the rough side of his tongue, not because he had lost his temper and couldn’t help himself. That, though unpleasant, she could have understood. No, they were all in for it because he had found them acting in a way he didn’t consider proper. In some obscure way it threatened the control he seemed to need to exercise over his house and his family.

Mrs Crawford was on her feet, aware as everyone was of the sudden chill in the air.

‘Good evening, Mr MacMillan. You’ll be wanting your supper. I’d better be getting home. I’ll be seeing you, Sadie.’

Liz saw her father’s eyebrows rise at the use of her mother’s first name. The gesture infuriated her. She wasn’t going to allow him to spoil her mother’s new friendship. Taking a mental deep breath, she rushed in.
Where angels fear to tread
were the words that sprang to her mind.

‘Why don’t you see Mrs Crawford to the door, Ma? I’ll get on with the supper.’

With grim pleasure she saw that her father was torn between the desire to assert his authority and the desire to defer to Mrs Crawford as the wife of one of the senior managers. Deference won. That didn’t mean the storm wasn’t about to break - only that it had been delayed.

Sadie crept back into the room and lifted her apron off its hook. Her hands were clumsy as she tied the strings around her waist.

‘Here, Ma,’ said Eddie gently, ‘I’ll get that for you.’

He completed the task and sat down. Liz began slicing the bread. The icy silence was too much for Sadie to bear.

‘They were only having a wee dance, William. You and I used to enjoy that, don’t you remember?’

Liz and Eddie exchanged a look. Couldn’t their father hear the plea in their mother’s voice?

‘That’s where we met,’ Sadie told her children as she unwrapped the cheese. ‘Your father was a lovely dancer. Real good-looking, too. All the other girls were jealous when he asked me up.’

For the merest second, Liz saw something flicker in her father’s eyes. It was gone so quickly she wondered if she had imagined it.

His lack of response was making Sadie more and more nervous. She dropped the teaspoons on the floor and had to run them under the tap. When she put the cups and saucers out, they rattled noisily. Her husband sat waiting to be served, breathing heavily and tutting whenever she did something wrong. It made Liz so angry ... but if she or Eddie stood up for their mother it only made matters worse.

Her own escapade tonight hadn’t helped. Liz laid the milk jug and sugar bowl on the table. Her father glanced up at her.

‘You look like a hoyden, Elizabeth. When did you last brush your hair? And you’ve torn your skirt.’ He pointed to the threads which had been pulled by the nail as she had hurtled round into the lane. ‘That’s sheer carelessness.’

What was she supposed to say to that?
Yes, Father, I probably do look like a hoyden. Thanks for the compliment. Nice of you to take an interest in my appearance.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘Sorry, Father,’ she mumbled as she slipped into her seat. She hoped that would do. She should have known better. The tirade began with ‘Sorry’s all very well, my girl.’ It went on through the cost of clothes and the necessity for a young lady like herself - especially now that she was the daughter of a shipyard manager - to look neat and smart at all times. Ye gods!

The tongue-lashing ended as it usually did, with a shaking of the head over Liz’s ingratitude - to him for providing her with a roof over her head and to her mother for all the cooking and cleaning she did for her children. That was the only time he ever said anything remotely complimentary about his wife - when he was using her as a stick to beat Liz over the head with.

Liz had learned a long time ago not to answer back. Not out loud, at any rate. She suspected her father knew that very well. There was something in her character which infuriated him. He called it a rebellious streak. She called it survival - a refusal to be bullied.

Last week she had read an article in the
Evening Citizen
about how so many girls didn’t fancy nursing because of the discipline of nurses’ homes. It couldn’t be worse than this. She’d happily submit herself to it.

The possibility was there. The Voluntary Aid Detachment nursing auxiliaries were to be split into mobile and non-mobile. If you were mobile, you might be sent anywhere. Away from here.

She shot a swift glance across the table at her mother. Listening to her husband lambasting their daughter, Sadie was white-faced and drawn.

Liz experienced a huge flood of guilt. She was putting her mother in a difficult enough position as it was. There was no way she could apply to become a mobile VAD. It was completely out of the question. She couldn’t leave Sadie to cope with him on her own, or to deal with the ructions which would inevitably follow her own departure.

Funny to think that her parents had once loved to dance with each other. Almost unimaginable. Not because they were old. They weren’t. Sadie wasn’t forty yet, and her husband had reached that milestone only a few months before. The MacMillans had married young.

The wedding photograph hung on the wall in the front room. Liz had always found it difficult to relate the smiling young couple to the people her parents had now become. They had loved each other once, she supposed.

Her father was still going on at her. All this for a few pulled threads and some music that was a bit too loud? How was he going to react when she announced that she was going to become a volunteer auxiliary nurse in her spare time? Liz’s stomach lurched.